Under One Roof

The rain pounded down, pouring across the car windows. Tegan Spanner watched the individual drops joining together and then separating again, trying to find anything that would distract her from where she was heading.

Moistville. Even the name sounded grey and boring. Well, technically they weren’t going to Moistville. They were heading to some no-name suburb on the edge of an unremarkable town, where nothing that she would care about could possibly happen. She hadn’t even bothered to learn the name of the place; all she knew was that Moistville was the only university she would be able to travel to from here. And that was an important detail, because without her college fund there was no hope of her being able to afford a place of her own while she studied.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She’d had a place lined up at the Anchorage College of Acoustic Arts. She’d interviewed and they wanted her there. It was her dream, an elite institution that extended an offer to less than one candidate in a hundred, and they had been eager to see her. That should have been the point when all of her dreams came true. An elite, specialist college had shown that they were willing to take her regardless of her final exam results. They wanted her, they really did. But as it turned out, their enthusiasm to have her study there didn’t turn into fiscal support. They would pay for her tuition fees, flights out there at the start of every semester, or a room on campus, but not all three. She hadn’t worried about that when they discussed the conditions of the bursary, because she’d known that her parents had set up a college fund for her, and had been regularly paying in money ever since she started high school.

She had been happy about that. When it came to discipline, or privileges around the house, or being able to spend time with friends, she had always had to defer to what was convenient for her big brothers. But the college fund was proof that her parents really cared. They had set money aside for her, so that at long last she would be able to do what she wanted.

When dad had given her the account book for those savings, cautioning her not to spend it all at once, she’d been determined to act responsibly. She had marched down to the bank on a day as dreary as today, just to check her balance. She’d had to line up to speak to a teller, because you couldn’t use an ATM for a passbook savings account. She had known there would be a temptation, when she found out how much money she actually had. And she’d known that it would be foolish to waste her college money. She’d spent a long time thinking about it, and decided exactly how much she could afford to take out if the lure of a small fortune was too much to resist entirely. Enough to buy a new t-shirt, but not enough to break the bank. And then she’d broken down in tears when the teller told her that the account balance was thirteen cents. Her academic career was over before it had started; some person unknown had cleared out all her funds only a few days before.

Tegan wasn’t just watching the raindrops now, or trying to focus on the spray from other cars when congestion cleared up enough to let them move a fraction. She was lost in her memories again, trying as hard as she could not to be overwhelmed by all her worries. She should have been used to the anxiety now; she’d lived her own life in fear of her brothers, and she was finally getting out from under their feet now. She should be relieved, but she couldn’t deal with the amount of uncertainty she was feeling now. She knew she was fragile, and vulnerable. And that made her dread going back to school – or rather, starting her college career – even more. She just didn’t know how things were going to turn out, and she hoped that other people wouldn’t recognise how easy it would be to hurt her in her current confusion.

“Anything I can do, Princess?” Mr Spanner asked. And that was a little sign of hope. She’d told him once that asking if she was okay could actually be counterproductive; something she’d heard from a friend who knew a little more about psychology. And her father had taken the knowledge, filed it away, and hadn’t used those words since. Now he asked practical questions, like what he could do. And she loved him for that.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I just can’t believe… I’m still trying to take it in.”

“I think this has been coming for a while,” he said, after the obligatory chorus of resigned sighing. “Once we talked, it just… It’s scary how fast things can change. But at least I’m not out on my ear. You know you could have stayed with your mother, right? Her new partner could probably support you better than I can.”

“After he stole my college fund?” she snapped irritably. She didn’t know that was true, and couldn’t even see how it could be possible. But the suspicion was always there in her mind; one of her new stepdads struck her as the kind of person who would happily steal from family; every time she’d spoken to him over the last couple of months, her skin had been crawling so much she half expected it to escape her body and go hide in a closet. She shook her head, and tried to drive away those feelings as she continued: “Ugh. Sorry. It’s just… I don’t really want to live with that guy, no matter how much money he’s got. That whole ‘alpha male’ schtick is just… you know, not good. And staying with the boys as well, it would all be too much. I needed a change. And I bet… well… it’ll be different now, right?”

“Yeah,” her father said, but there wasn’t that much confidence in his voice. “Look, I’ve been talking to Logan, and we want to help you with college. We just haven’t got the financial means. But I promise you, we will do everything we can to help you settle in at Moistville. It’s not like a world-class conservatory or something, but I hope it’ll be better than nothing. And now you can depend on us. Both of us.”

“Thanks, Dad,” she said, and tried to force a smile as she turned back towards him. “I really appreciate it. And, you know, I can’t wait to meet him.”

That was another thing weighing on her mind. She’d met the guy her mother had hooked up with; he’d been quite clear that he’d treat her like his own child so long as she behaved like he expected a girl to. And she’d decided, after a lot of thought, that the little information she had wasn’t doing anything to convince her that she would be safe from bullying in their house. But her dad’s new fiancé, Logan, was a cipher. She hadn’t even met the guy, and knew only the few details that her dad had decided to share.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. Her dad had talked at length about how wonderful Logan was, and had probably told her more details than she would ever care to remember. But she’d been so stressed, worrying about things that might not even have been her business, that she hadn’t been able to take anything in. Now, she knew that they were moving to a new house Logan had found for them, and it was close enough to Moistville University that she could study while staying at home. But aside from that, she didn’t have the faintest clue what to expect.

“I’m sure you’ll love him,” her dad said. And again, his voice didn’t sound like he had that kind of certainty. This was all such a gamble; the kind of thing she would never even have considered if there had been any hint of another viable option. “I hope you can get on well with Ness, too. I know it will be hard, but can you try for me, Princess? I understand if you want to keep to yourself, and I’ll be happy to accept that. But can you try? For me?”

“Ness?” she asked, before realising that this was one of those things that she should certainly already have known. She was sure her dad had said something, but she couldn’t bring it to mind now. It was like there was a fog in her head, tendrils swirling around and around until the only thing she could see was worry; hiding even the real things that she should have been worrying about. But she knew that they’d talked about this before, because everything sounded so familiar as soon as her dad started talking.

“Logan’s son,” he said. “Your stepbrother, I guess. But nothing like the stepbrothers in those comics you read. I really hope you can help him. He’s had to miss some school because he has issues, and we kind of hoped that having more family around might bring him out of his shell a bit. I’ve probably not talked about him so much, while we were thinking about everything that could go wrong. But I’m sure I mentioned him. He used to be quite good on the piano, they say. Until his mother… And then Logan says he was like a different person. I’m not expecting you to do anything, but I hope that us just being there will help him to start interacting in a normal way again. If you know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Tegan mumbled, and turned her gaze back to the grey skies and the road ahead, vanishing into the mist with just a half dozen other cars visible. If the weather reflected any part of her soul, she hoped that she would find a way to have a good day soon enough. But the appearance of a stepbrother she’d been blocking from her mind was just one more complication.

A brother. She knew about brothers; she had three of them, and every one had been a nightmare. They put her down for the sake of it, or to prove their strength. They didn’t fight each other that much, but they would come together to put pressure on her as soon as they smelled weakness. And she didn’t relish the prospect of having to defend herself from a completely new brother.

There was only one option, she was sure, even though she really hated the prospect. If she wanted to avoid the pranks, teasing, and nightmares, she would have to strike first. If she could put Ness in his place before he had a chance to hurt her, then there was just a sliver of a chance that he would let her get through college without any further harassment.

She was still afraid, but this was just the first hint of a solution to one of the many problems she could foresee in the year ahead.